Anything that interferes with the accurate transmission or reception of a message, such as a faulty microphone or the receiver's prejudice, is referred to in communication studies as

Noise is the technical term for any barrier that distorts a message, whether physical (a faulty microphone), semantic (unfamiliar words) or psychological (prejudice). The medium carries the message, the context is the setting in which communication occurs, and decoding is the receiver's interpretation of the message.